


Never Say Die

by madamebomb



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, F/M, Sokkla, Sukka, Zuki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6731497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebomb/pseuds/madamebomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange encounter with the vampire prince of the city leaves Suki rattled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Say Die

**Author's Note:**

> This may become a longer chaptered fic, I dunno yet.

Suki's boots were soft on the pavement as she crept down the narrow alley, keeping to the light filtering down from a flickering sodium light at the mouth of the alley.

She wasn't alone.

She could sense eyes on her, a hot, intense gaze that tore shudders through her skin, and rose goosebumps on the back of her neck. Sweat broke on her skin as she slowly stalked down the alley, feeling suddenly that she had been herded here on purpose. Except that wasn't true.

She was both lure and predator. And the prey was the thing watching her from the darkness. She gripped a wooden stake in her hands, a bladed metal fan in the other. The weapons were comfortable in her hands, extensions of her body.

She had killed with them before.

And she intended to do it again tonight. After she got the answers she was seeking.

The thing in the shadows followed her with rapt attention as she walked, waiting for an opportunity. She was tired of waiting though.

“I know you're there. Watching me. I know what you are.”

“Then you should know better than to walk down dark alleys alone. There are monsters in the dark places of this city,” a voice as soft and dark as black velvet said, making shivers slid up her spine as she breathed out, trying to steady her racing pulse.

“I know. I've been hunting your kind for years,” she said through her teeth, flicking her short hair out of her eyes. Sweat slid down her back as her boots dug into the wet pavement. Somewhere beyond the narrow alley a siren screamed, racing toward danger and death.

“A hunter, then? It's been a very long time since a vampire hunter has been able to track me. That's what you were doing, wasn't it? You've been following me for blocks, trying to lure me in... Consider me intrigued.”

“Show yourself.”

“If you're looking for a fight, I would rethink it. I'll win and you'll be dead,” the voice said, from behind her now.

“You sound cocky,” she said, spinning to face the unseen threat. “Cocky vampires are sloppy vampires. They always end up dead. I never lose.”

“Now who's feeling cocky?” the vampire chuckled, his voice coming on her left. She adjusted her grip on the stake in her hands and slowly faced that direction. He was playing with her. She couldn't let him get behind her again. If she did, he'd have his fangs in her in a second.

“Come out and fight me like a man.”

“I haven't been a man in a very long time... I'm a monster, and I _will_ hurt you if you tempt me.”

“Stop making threats then. Fight me!” she barked, and felt the air stir behind her.

She spun toward the movement on instinct, fan raised, fingers tightening on the rough wooden stake in her palm. Fire bloomed to life inches from her face, illuminating the garbage-strewn, cramped alley, and her attacker. The heat of the flames bathed her, scorched her. She flinched, but didn't back down as she stared at the scarred, pale vampire before her.

He was tall, muscled, with jewel-bright eyes the color of citrines. One half of his face was taken over by a mottled burn scar—unusual for a vampire. His hair was dark and thick, flowing down his shoulders, and into his eyes. The fire in his hands jumped and leaped like a pulsing heartbeat. She saw his lips pull back into a sharp smile, and the glint of his pointed fangs. Satisfaction and amusement shone in his eyes as he glanced at the stake in her hands, and the bladed fan inches from his throat.

“Careful, you could put someone's eye out with that,” he said as she lifted her chin, trying to still the pounding heartbeat she knew that he could hear.

“Looks like someone already tried,” she said, her gaze flicking to his scar.

“Fire's dangerous. I learned that the hard way. It seems you haven't yet, Huntress,” he said, biting down on his lower lip.

“Don't call me that.”

“Well, I don't know your name, so you'll have to excuse me,” the vampire said in amusement, and then glanced down at the weapons in her hands again. “You know I could kill you before you got that stake anywhere near my heart.”

“Then do it.”

“Where's the fun in that?” he mused. “Besides, if I killed you, I wouldn't find out why you're hunting me. Or why you smell the way you do. It's what called me to you.”

“I smell?” That was news to her.

“Quite delicious, actually, but that's not what I mean.” He smiled and tilted his head back, walking forward a little.

“Don't even think about it,” she snarled, pushing the stake into his chest, right over his heart. He glanced down at it for a moment and then back at her. His tongue slid along his lower lip, and she felt warm all of a sudden, heat flushing her skin. Her heart beat harder in her chest, adrenaline spiking.

“You aren't going to stake me. If you were, you would have attacked me the moment I showed myself to you. What do you want?”

“I want to know where he is.”

His pierced eyebrow rose sardonically. “He who?”

“My fiance. I know vampires took him. I know he--”

“I don't know who your fiance is,” he interjected impatiently. “But I assure you, if my kindred took him...he's dead. Or as good as. He's lost to you, Huntress. Give up your search.”

“I can't.”

The vampire chuckled a little. “Then you'll die.”

“I know a vampire took him. A woman... I saw them together.”

“He was alive?”

“Yes.”

“Then he went willingly. He has become a thrall to this vampire. We can only ensnare the willing, those who give themselves to us freely. Those who resist us are food, and nothing more. You'll never get him back.”

“No. Sokka wouldn't leave me. Not willingly.”

Something flickered in the vampire's eyes. “Sokka?”

“Yes,” she said tightly, hope flaring in her chest. He had recognized the name. She knew that he had.

“Oh, my beautiful little Huntress... You have stumbled into a quite dangerous situation. It would be kinder to kill you now, than let you hunt this vampire and the man you claim loves you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your Sokka is not what he seems, and the vampire who stole him from you is a ruthless bitch the likes of which your human mind could not even begin to fathom.”

“You know her.”

“Of course, I do,” he said with disgust, backing up a step. His lip curled. “She's my sister, Azula.”

“Azula...” Terror filled her. She knew that name. All the hunters did. “The Princess?”

“The one and only, I'm afraid.”

“And that means... You're Prince Zuko.” She stared at him in horror. She had heard tales of the vampiric Royal Family, the rulers of the legion of undead that plagued the streets of the city, but none of the hunters she knew had encountered them and lived. The vampires were ruthless, vicious beings who stalked the darkness, drinking the humans dry. They lived in the shadows, and they were powerful. No matter how many hunters there were, they still grew in strength and numbers, year after year. A battle raged in the back alleys and drug dens. And the humans were losing.

But still, she and her fellow hunters fought them. It was the only thing they could do.

At his name, Zuko smiled sardonically and bowed to her, though his burning eyes never left her. She felt pinned by his power suddenly.

“The one and only,” he said with a bitter edge to his voice, standing up straight. “You came looking for a vampire tonight and you found their prince.”

“Aren't I lucky?” she said, breathing hard as Prince Zuko's gaze shifted across her, measuring her. He walked forward and she tracked his movements. “Where is your sister keeping Sokka?”

“Forget him. The beast will get you killed.”

“I have a feeling I'm dead already. I have to at least try.”

“Does he know? What you are?” Zuko asked, glancing toward the stake in her hands.

“A hunter? No,” she said, her voice shaking.

“So this is a new hobby?”

“No.”

“So you lied to him.”

“He doesn't like the hunters.”

Zuko's laugh was like dark chocolate against her senses. “I'll bet he doesn't. And you don't know... Who he is, what he is...”

“What are you talking about?”

“Go home, Huntress. Forget about him. Lock your doors and windows. Stay out of the shadows. Let sleeping wolves lie.”

“I can't,” she said tightly, emotion choking her. “And I can't let you leave here alive.”

The amusement in his gaze became cold and calculating. “Do not give me a reason to harm you.”

“You're a vampire, you don't need a reason. You're a killer and I can't let you go,” she snarled and slashed at him with the bladed fan.

He stepped back, preternaturally fast, swooping beneath her arm as she sliced at the place where he'd been. She tried to get her stake up, but he knocked it out of her hand with a lightning quick slash of his hand. It clattered across the cracked, garbage-strewn pavement and was lost to the darkness. She recovered, smashing her elbow toward his face, but he dodged the blow, caught her arm, and pinned it behind her back.

“You're fast,” he said, and shoved her against the brick wall at her back. His eyes flashed like the fire he'd conjured. “I'm faster.”

His body pressed against hers as she struggled to get her fan up between them. He plucked the fan out of her fingers and tossed it aside, then caught the fist she launched at his chin. He pinned her arm to the bricks above her head.

She grappled with him, trying to get her knees up into his crotch, but he seemed to have no trouble keeping her in place. He was old and strong, far stronger than the fledgling vampires she'd staked before.

“Let me go, you monster!”

“A monster... Yes, I'm a monster. And I want to eat you,” he said, pressing his face along hers. He took a long sniff of her neck, the tip of his nose running along her pulse point, until she felt his lips on her ear. “Your scent... What are you, little Huntress? I've never smelled anything like you before...”

She had no idea what he was talking about, as she tensed, eyes slamming shut as she anticipated the sharp pain of his fangs puncturing her neck. Instead she felt his lips on her pulse point, and the soft brush of his tongue on her neck.

A shiver went through her body, igniting a deep, dark longing within her. It swept through her terror, smashing through her helplessness and knocking a moan out of her bitten lips.

“Please...”

“I can smell your arousal. How sweet you'd taste, Huntress,” he mumbled against her skin. Then he nipped her. Not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to make her gasp, quivering in fear and pain and arousal. He pulled away from her and stared into her eyes. “I'm more tempted to taste your blood than you could ever know.”

“Why don't you?”

“A question for another night, perhaps,” he said darkly, cocking his head to side. “More humans are coming. They're calling your name. _Suki._ ”

She bit down on the inside of her lip, glaring at him. “Don't hurt them.”

“I won't. For you.”

The pressure of his body holding her to the brick wall sudden disappeared, and she found herself sagging in place, her knees like water. She gasped, and saw that he was perched on the opposite wall of the alley, clinging to the bricks upside down, like a spider.

“Suki...” he said her name again, rolling it around on his tongue like a fine wine. “I'll be seeing you again, Suki. Very soon.”

Then he was gone in a blur of movement up the side of the building. She lost him in the draping shadows, and the moment he was gone, it was as if someone had punched the wind out of her. She sagged in place against the alley wall, gasping, her heart slamming against her ribcage. The air tasted of arousal, and flame, and it was heavy with unspoken things.

Suki pushed her hair out of her eyes with a shaking hand, just as a group of hunters came running into the alley. They wanted to know what she had been doing, why she had gone off alone.

She brushed them off as best she could. She was rattled, not just by her encounter with the vampire prince of the city...but also by the way her body had betrayed her so quickly and thoroughly in his grip. If he had bitten her, she didn't know if she would have pushed him away. A part of her knew that it hadn't just been the natural magnetism all vampires possessed. There had been something about the scarred prince. A power she had been instantly powerless to resist. Why he had spared her, she had no idea. She didn't _want_ to know, and the last thing she needed right now was to have one of the most powerful vampires in the city chasing her.

But now he knew her name. Somehow, no matter how hard she tried, she had a feeling her run-in with Zuko would not be her last. And she doubted she'd come out on top the next time either.

For all that the encounter had been confusing, at least she'd found out the one thing she'd been hunting for all month; a lead as to where Sokka had been taken. She'd been stalking and staking vampires, looking for clues, but no one had talked.

Now she knew why. Princess Azula had him. The vampires that owed her and her father allegiance would rather die at the stake than betray their King or his beautiful, ruthless daughter. And die they had. Why Azula's own brother had told her about Sokka, she had no idea, but she wasn't going to question it.

Now she had a lead. Now she had a target.

She had to get Sokka back. She knew, no matter what Zuko had said, that he hadn't left her willingly. Just as she knew that getting him out of Azula's clutches would be impossible. Suicidal, even.

Suki walked home slowly, determination tightening her jaw. Despite the danger, she knew she would try to get to Sokka anyway.

She was a hunter, after all.

“And hunters never say die,” she whispered to the pink sun rising over the sprawling, crime-filled city she called home. Sirens wailed in the distance, the smell of blood and death filling the streets. Tonight's battle against the darkness was over.

But the war was just beginning.

(end)


End file.
